Delegates to this year’s Annual Conference won’t find many surprises in the proposed Florida Conference budget for 2013.

Expected to be approved during Annual Conference is a $17.6 million budget, down about 1 percent from the 2012 budget.

For all practical purposes, “it’s flat,” said Mickey Wilson, Conference treasurer. That means apportionment requests will remain roughly the same for churches in the Florida Conference.

Approximately $7 million is earmarked for programs shepherded by the General Church, leaving about $10.5 million for programs administered by the Florida Conference.

Delegates will vote on the budget after a presentation from Wilson that begins at 2:45 p.m. June 15.

The overall budget shrank a little because of a $470,000 decrease in requests from the General Church, which reflects a 6 percent drop from the previous year, Wilson said.

However, Florida Conference spending is projected to increase by approximately $200,000, about half of that attributed to increases in subsidies related to clergy salaries and other support, including incapacity leave. That will bring clergy support funding to nearly $2.7 million.

“Even with the increase, we’re still down about half a million dollars from the ’07 budget,” Wilson said.

The Conference has continued to benefit from savings that stem largely from changes to the retiree insurance program that year, he said.

In the 2013 budget proposal, almost $5.3 million is proposed to go to efforts of the Florida Conference Connectional Ministry, including about $2.5 million in funding for Southern Florida and Bethune-Cookman colleges, other campus ministries, and camps and retreats.

As in recent years, the budget projects about $1 million for new church starts. Clergy support, encompassing mostly salaries, is projected to increase slightly to nearly $2.7 million.

For more information about the Conference schedule, go to www.flumc.org and click on the link for Annual Conference 2012.